[1] Sigrid Nunez was born and raised in New York City, the daughter of a German mother and a Chinese-Panamanian father.

She received her BA from Barnard College (1972) and her MFA from Columbia University (1975), after which she worked for a time as an editorial assistant at The New York Review of Books.

Nunez has published nine novels, including A Feather on the Breath of God, The Last of Her Kind, The Friend, What Are You Going Through, and, most recently, The Vulnerables.

[5] The duo Scott McGehee and David Siegel adapted her novel The Friend into a film starring Naomi Watts.

[6] Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar adapted What Are You Going Through into his English feature debut, The Room Next Door, starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore.